Hacker News Reader

Comment by elcct | Hacker News Reader

By their (lack of) logic, they should also have an officer following every citizen and logging where people go, so that they can know John left his house at 9:17 and checked in at local grocery shop at 9:28. With a warrant they could then obtain information that he has bought a large cucumber - let's arrest him, because he is probably cheating on the government with cucumber. He told the grocer, that how government fucks him is not making him satisfied, so he has to finish the job with a cucumber.

View on HN

We should also ban alleyways, as criminals can hide in them too.

Also noisy pubs and bars, because they provide an excellent environment for criminals to converse without people overhearing them.

And possibly the postal service, because criminals can use them to send messages, explosives, drugs and children to other criminals, without the police knowing the approximate contents of the communications.

I also think we need to take the obvious step to prevent pedophiles - ban children.

With location data and browsing habit metadata they already have that kind of info (with warrants). But their logic is still flawed in assuming criminals won't use a VPN and HTTPS.

It seems they want historical data so that they can run algorithms on large datasets and identify potential threats. In theory it's great as it will catch your average low level idealists, so rationally we can conclude that they're trying to focus on identifying, for example, potential IS recruits rather than organised crime.

that's so '30s. better barcode them on the neck and front, cctv cameras are already in enough place to track everyone.

That's so '80s. Facial recognition means we're basically already there.

That's so 00s. We need something that can't be easily fooled by scarf. I wonder when body odour recognition will arrive

joking aside, facial recognition has still some challenges, it can track a face wherever it goes but it's hard to assign a face to an identity unless it's constantly retrained (especially as people age/change)

Any of the 'smart' thermostats will do that for you. Already doing it. And the smart meters too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com